


The Snow Seems Heavier Than Before

by DaFlameDFZ



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Baby Death, Child Death, Infant Death, Other Characters Are Mentioned, Pure sadness, The darkest ending for season 2, this is not a happy story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:07:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25577059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaFlameDFZ/pseuds/DaFlameDFZ
Summary: Based on the Darkest Ending from season 2, in which you get to decide how you would have reacted in the game if it had come out around that time.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	1. The Storm

**Author's Note:**

> Please make sure you click on the Chapter Index to choose what you would do!

Clem grabbed AJ from Jane’s hands, just in time to avoid a walker trying to bite Jane’s arm again. Clem quickly got out of the truck and got out of harm’s way, only to hear that Jane was unable to get out. She could hear Jane’s screams of pain as the walkers tore into her flesh. Clem held AJ a little bit closer as she began to walk away. She had no idea where Kenny was, and there was no way Jane was alive. Clem tried to hold back her tears, she couldn’t afford them with how cold it was. 

Clem walked, sometimes noticing some standing walkers who didn’t seem to move, even after shooting the first one through the head. Walk, aim, shoot. Walk. Aim. Shoot. There didn’t seem to be an end in sight. Walk, aim, shoot. Clem took a bit longer than she would have liked to realise AJ wasn’t crying anymore. He was probably just too cold to. Clem adjusted her hold on AJ again, holding him closer to her chest, trying her best to block him from the wind. She continued to walk. 

Another walker, another bullet gone. She couldn’t afford to keep firing at them, but she also couldn’t afford them all coming after her when this storm was over. Clem needed to find Kenny. She adjusted her grip on AJ again, he was a heavy baby. Clem was shaking so much, and AJ wasn’t moving around as much anymore. 

Another walker found, another bullet gone. The gun was almost empty now. AJ wasn’t moving in the bundle he was put in. Clem nudged him, and he let out a small, weak cry. He was still alive. Clem once again adjusted her hold on him, she was so cold. He was so heavy. There didn’t seem to be a shelter in sight, but she wouldn’t know until she walked into it. The snow was falling heavier than before. 

Clem almost didn’t see the next walker. Everything was too bright. She quickly backtracked, but fell into the snow. AJ was trying a bit louder this time, the walker looked like it was trying to make a move for her, but she used her last bullet on it. The walker fell to the ground and Clem weakly got to her feet. AJ’s crying got weaker once more as she picked him up and held him once more. Clem couldn’t help but think about how much faster she could be walking if she didn’t have AJ in her arms. She began to walk again, carefully this time. The gun was dead weight in her hand, so she dropped it. 

Clem was unsteady on her feet now. She wondered if she looked like a walker, stumbling through the snow, holding AJ close, trying to protect him from the howling wind. She tried to see anything. But could only see a few dark shapes in the snow. She couldn’t tell if they were walkers or trees. She avoided them. There was no way they were a building, and she didn’t have a gun anymore. She couldn’t risk having to get away. AJ was too heavy to allow her to run.

Clem logically knew something was wrong when she couldn’t feel the cold anymore. It felt like when she first came out of the frozen lake when trying to save Luke. She knew she needed to get somewhere warm fast. But she was barely able to move her legs. The snow was piling up around her. AJ’s weight in her arms reminded her of when she tried to help Mike move those water containers. He was so difficult to hold now. He was barely breathing. Clem looked around for a moment, and saw something. A light. It looked far away, and Clem knew that in her current state she wouldn’t be able to make it. She looked down at AJ again. Before realising that she wouldn’t have any way to keep him alive, even if they made it out of the snow. She wasn’t even sure when she could start feeding AJ non-baby food. 

She looked at the light again, and a dark thought forced its way into her mind. She did have two choices. She looked back at the light. She would have a chance to make it by herself. Without AJ weighing her down. But leaving AJ would mean all the sacrifices the group made would be worthless. The thought of leaving him made her heart hurt.


	2. Leave AJ

Clem knew what she was thinking was a very bad thing, but the chance of survival for AJ was slim to none the moment Rebecca died. With a heavy heart, she put AJ down in the snow. He let out a weak cry at the sudden contact with snow, but Clem had to ignore it. Without AJ holding her back and taking her own body heat, she was able to move a bit faster. She was still stumbling, but that would go away when she found a warm shelter. 

Clem did her best to ignore the tears running down her face. AJ wouldn’t have made it out here anyways. Why had they even brought him this way? Someplace warm would have been better for AJ. At least if he had gotten too warm they could just cool him down. But AJ had only known the warmth of a fire, and had never felt a warm summer day. And now he never would have the chance because Clem had left him. Guilt made her turn around for a minute to see if AJ was still there, still alive. But she couldn’t see him in the snow anymore. She almost fell over with how fast the snow had swallowed him up. If she went back to look for him, she would die out there with him. Isn’t that what she had been trying to avoid? 

So she went back to walking, trying to find shelter. But the weight of what she had done was dragging her down with AJ. The lights had disappeared for a moment, and she weakly called out for help from them, but her heart wasn’t in it and they left her like she left AJ to die. 

She kept walking though, as fast as she could manage. She tripped over a rock, and the sudden dive into the snow made her realise she could hardly feel her arms and legs. Her fingers and toes felt like they weren't there anymore. But she didn’t have the energy to waste trying to warm them up. She had to keep moving. She got back up and looked around. There was a rock, and a few trees near her, but she was presumably still on the road. She had to find the Truck stop to find Kenny. 

That her thoughts ran wild as she started walking again. What would Kenny think of her, for leaving AJ to die like that? Could she manage to lie to him and say it was an accident? The guilt after thinking of lying to Kenny made her stomach drop. But would Kenny kill her for leaving AJ? Clementine didn’t want to think about that. She wanted to forget AJ had existed. Forget what she had done. She kept walking, but she couldn’t feel her face anymore. The tears she hadn’t realised were falling had allowed the wind to freeze her. She fell again, and tried to get up. But she couldn’t. Her limbs didn’t feel like anything, but she was starting to feel warm.

‘Did somebody pick me up?’ was the first thought she had. But opening her eyes, which she hadn’t realised she closed, proved that she was still in the snow. She tried to get up again, but her limbs weren’t responding. She felt numb and warm. Too warm. She wanted to be in the snow. ‘It’s too hot out here.’ She found herself reasoning. But that didn’t make sense. She was in the snow. ‘I’m in the snow because I got too warm.’ she rationalised, but that didn’t make sense either. 

‘Does it even matter? I was cold but now I’m warm. Being warm is all that matters right now.’ She closed her eyes again, glad to feel warmth after so long.


	3. Stay With AJ

Clem shook the dark thought from her mind and looked back up at the light. It was going further away from them now. She felt guilty, but looked back down at AJ. They wouldn’t make it out here. 

Clem trudged along, trying to call out for help. It was cold enough by now that the walkers couldn’t move. She hoped anyways. Her voice was hurting her throat, and the extra energy she was wasting wasn’t helping whoever was there to hear her. Soon the light was gone in the fog, and Clem had no idea where to begin to look for whatever or whoever it was again. She continued to walk until her legs collapsed under her. She saw a rock and managed to crawl her way to it. Clem sat at the rock, holding AJ close once more. But he wasn’t moving anymore. Clem tried to nudge him again, but he didn’t respond. She tried everything she could to get him to respond. He moved. 

He moved in a way that was unnatural, even for a newborn. He moved like she saw Christa and Omid’s baby move after they had been born. Clem felt the urge to cry again. AJ must have gotten too cold, like Luke had. He was growling, a sound so much stronger than the cries he was making in his last hour. Moving more than he did since he was born. Trying to reach up with his little hands to grab Clem, trying to bite her with the teeth he hadn’t gotten the chance to have grown in. AJ was dead and turned in her arms, and she had no way to put him down. She didn’t think she would be able to do it, even if she still had her gun. He was still heavy, and moving so much it was hard to keep hold of him now. She set the newborn walker down in the snow, looking at him. 

Clem rubbed her eyes, and felt the tears she had been trying to hold in freely running down her face. She shivered, but she didn’t feel cold anymore. “I’m so sorry.” She spoke, her voice hoarse. She was so sorry. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.” Clem was thinking of Rebecca and Alvin, who had placed their trust in her to protect AJ. She thought of Luke, Carlos , Sarita, and Jane, who had died to get them this far. She thought of Sarah, and how she had failed to save her too. Of Omid, who died due to her own bad decisions. Of Christa, who she had gotten separated from because Clem didn’t force her to take the lighter. Of Lee, who she directly had killed. First with her believing a stranger than Lee, who had been like a second father to her. Then with the gun she had to abandon in the snow. Carley’s gun that Lee had carried with him, and then had given her. 

Clem let out a small, weak sob. “I’m so sorry.” the words barely made it out into the snow. Clem curled up onto herself as AJ slowly began to get too cold to move once more. He was still growling and groaning in a weird way. And Clem didn’t feel anything but guilt.


End file.
